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SYNOPSIS
- DOOMSDAY (GRAND SLAM) GAMBIT
- Disillusioned extremists in Iran, North Korea and Russia, grow
impatient
waiting for their leaders to act decisively. Having watched the
Ukraine debacle of Vladimir Putin rebound to weaken their CRINK axis
members. This despite Hamas launching
against Israel and Houthi attacks on the Red
Sea. All that had the effect of waking the sleeping giant: NATO.
World War
III, World War
3, WWIII, WW3, or the Third World War are the names given to a hypothetical global conflict subsequent to
World
War One and
World War
II referred to simply as
"The Great
War".
Before the beginning of
World War II
in 1939, World War I (1914–1918) was believed to have been "the war to end all wars". It was popularly believed that never again could there possibly be a global conflict of such magnitude.
The planet simmered for a while, until Adolf Hitler lit the fuse by
invading Poland.
After
WWII we had the Cold
War, a game of nuclear missile chess, where each
side tried to outdo the other with more missiles and submarines and
counters to countermeasure. And that brings us to today.
In nuclear strategy, a first strike or
preemptive strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing side is left unable to continue war. The preferred methodology is to attack the opponent's strategic nuclear weapon facilities (missile silos, submarine bases, bomber airfields), command and control sites, and storage depots first. The strategy is called counterforce.
First-strike attack, the use of a nuclear first strike capability, was greatly feared during the Cold War between
NATO and the Soviet Bloc. At various points, fear of a first strike attack existed on both sides. Misunderstood changes in posture and well understood changes in technology used by either side often led to speculation regarding the enemy's intentions.
1948 - 1961
In the aftermath of World War II, the leadership of the Soviet Union feared the United States would use its nuclear superiority to initiate a full-scale attack, as from 1945 to 1948 the U.S. was the only state possessing nuclear weapons and until the late 1960s preserved an overwhelming superiority. The USSR countered by rapidly developing their own nuclear weapons, surprising the US with their first test in 1949. In turn, the U.S. countered by developing the vastly more powerful thermonuclear weapon, testing their first
hydrogen bomb in 1952 at Ivy Mike, but the USSR quickly countered by testing their own thermonuclear weapons, with a test in 1953 of a semi-thermonuclear weapon of the Sloika design, and in 1956, with the testing of Sakharov's Third Idea – equivalent to the Castle Bravo device. Meanwhile, tensions between the two nations rose as 1956 saw Soviet invasion of
Hungary; the U.S. and European nations drew certain conclusions from that event, while in the U.S., a powerful social backlash was afoot, prompted by Senator Joseph McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, U.S. citizens executed in 1953 after conviction of espionage.
This atmosphere was further inflamed by the 1957 launch of Sputnik, which led to fears of Communists attacking from outer space, as well as concerns that if the Soviets could launch a device into orbit, they could equally cause a device to re-enter the atmosphere and impact any part of the planet. John F. Kennedy capitalized on this situation by emphasizing the bomber gap and the missile gap, areas in which the Soviets were (inaccurately) perceived as leading the United States, while heated Soviet rhetoric added to political pressure. The 1960 U-2 incident, involving Francis Gary Powers, as well as the
Berlin Crisis, along with the test of the Tsar Bomba, escalated tensions still further.
THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
This escalating situation came to a head with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The arrival of Soviet missiles in
Cuba was conducted by the Soviets on the rationale that the US already had nuclear missiles stationed in
Turkey, as well as the desire by Fidel Castro to increase his power, his freedom of action, and to protect his government from US-initiated prejudicial resolution of ideological disputes through the use of military force, such as had been attempted during the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961. During the crisis, Fidel Castro wrote Khrushchev a letter about the prospect that the "imperialists" would be "extremely dangerous" if they responded militarily to the Soviet stationing of nuclear missiles aimed at US territory, less than 90 miles away in
Cuba. The following quotation from the letter suggests that Castro was calling for a Soviet first strike against the US if it responded militarily to the placement of
nuclear missiles aimed at the US in Cuba:
If the second variant takes place and the imperialists invade Cuba with the aim of occupying it, the dangers of their aggressive policy are so great that after such an invasion the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it. I tell you this because I believe that the imperialists' aggressiveness makes them extremely dangerous, and that if they manage to carry out an invasion of
Cuba - a brutal act in violation of universal and moral law—then that would be the moment to eliminate this danger forever, in an act of the most legitimate self-defense. However harsh and terrible the solution, there would be no other.
The Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in Nikita Khrushchev publicly agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba, while John F. Kennedy secretly agreed to remove his country's missiles from Turkey. Both sides in the
Cold War realized how close they came to nuclear war over Cuba, and decided to seek a reduction of tensions, resulting in US-Soviet détente for most of the 1960s and 1970s.
Nonetheless, this reduction of tensions only applied to the US and the USSR. Recently declassified interviews with high level former Soviet nuclear and military–industrial planners reveal that Fidel Castro continued to favour nuclear options, even during the later Cold War – according to former Soviet General Andrian Danilevich, "(...in the early 1980s...) Cuban leader Fidel Castro pressed the USSR to take a tougher line against the
United
States, including possible nuclear strikes. The Soviet Union, in response, sent experts to spell out for Castro the ecological consequences for Cuba of nuclear strikes on the United States. Castro, according to the general, quickly became convinced of the undesirability of such outcomes."
ANTI FIRST STRIKE COUNTERMEASURES
According to the theories of nuclear deterrence and mutual assured destruction, full countervalue
Second
Strike retaliation would be the likely fate for any state that unleashed a first strike. To maintain credible deterrence, nuclear-weapons states have taken measures to give their enemies reason to believe that a first strike would lead to unacceptable results.
The main strategy relies on creating doubt among enemy strategists regarding nuclear capacity, weapons characteristics, facility and infrastructure vulnerability, early warning systems, intelligence penetration, strategic plans, and political will. In terms of military capabilities, the aim is to create the impression of the maximum possible force and survivability, which leads the enemy to make increased estimates of the probability of a disabling counterstrike, and in terms of strategy and politics, the aim is to cause the enemy to believe that such a
Second
Strike would be forthcoming in the event of a nuclear attack.
See the build
your own bomb shelter survival guide.
What
is for sure, is that if there is not a serious threat, possibly a very
near miss involving the destruction of the player's nations and their
leaders, that World War Three is par for the course, just as a horse
needs a cart and a cart needs a horse. Or, death and taxes.
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